Whether you’re a graphic designer looking to create new marketing collateral for your company, a web designer carefully crafting a new site for a client, or just a design enthusiast, having a trusted voice you can rely on for consistent design inspiration is key. Graphic design blogs are a great way to plug into the latest trends and best practices, but with so many on the web, it can be tough to find the diamonds in the rough.
We asked our community of experts to share their favorite graphic design blogs for creative inspiration and they came through! Read on to discover your next favorite graphic design blog.
Aesthetica Magazine is an international art and culture magazine, founded in 2002. It publishes a bi-monthly physical magazine, that covers contemporary art and design from around the world across visual arts, photography, architecture, fashion, and graphic design, and while the magazine is wonderful, the online blog is just as full of quality content which really helps inspire me.
It is highly visual and draws in mesmerizing works from around the world, from industry leaders to undiscovered talents, making it the perfect place for graphic designers to get inspiration from both their peers, as well as other industry leaders.
– Daniel Foley, Director, Assertive
We get a lot of inspiration from Canva’s Design School. Although Canva has been primarily built as a design tool in itself, they also have a blog that gives a ton of inspiration for the design community.
We find everything on there: web pages, social media posts, flyers, posters, and a bunch of other materials that get our creative juices flowing. It’s also great that they have both beginner and pro artists doing the designs, so it’s just an open and friendly avenue to get inspired.
– Chelsea Hunt-Rivera, Co-founder, Honest Paws
Masterpicks highlights a real-world project every single day, meaning there will always be something new to dive right into.
With inspirations picked from the world of graphic design, photography, branding, 3D design, industrial design, and more, this blog is literally spilling over with stimulating content for you to choose from. Its highly visual layout makes it easy to pick the pieces that really catch your eye, and it’s extremely easy to select which art form you want to specifically look at, so scrolling through specifically graphic design inspirations is super easy.
– Chans Weber, Founder and CEO, LeapClixx
I have drawn huge inspiration from On Packaging. The elegant way that the blog houses its content makes it super easy to navigate and find designs that you can draw inspiration from. The outlandish nature of some of the designs that they upload can offer a new perspective on how you view design, something that they quite proudly boast. Even if you don’t work in packaging design, this blog is a great source of inspiration!
– Laurie Wilkins, Founder, Call Outdoors
Visuelle is an online creative showcase and visual feed curated by David Bennett Creative Director at opx.studio. What makes the blog unique is that it is open to application from all creatives, making it much more like a constantly growing group gallery art show, as opposed to being a specifically picked design look that suits the theme of an accompanying magazine. It is an ongoing open call, and Visuelle’s only criterion is their mantra that “if it’s great it goes on,” meaning you will see a wonderful array of varied good quality graphic design.
– Adam Korbl, Founder and CEO, iFax
GraphicMama will help you learn a lot about the importance of visual content and they also provide step-by-step tutorials and informative advice.
Another good recommendation is the Creative Bloq, an all-in-one blog that tackles all kinds of graphic design namely 3D art, illustration, motion, and animation.
– Tal Shelef, Co-Founder, Condo Wizard
Inspo Finds is a quirky blog that offers up a wide variety of inspiration and creativity. They are focused on championing creatives and the work they produce, making being a part of the process easy by simply sharing your work on social media and using the hashtag #inspofinds.
They believe that space to discuss with peers is a key part of celebrating good graphic design, and their posts are linked directly to their matching Instagram where conversation is interactive and exciting.
– Andrew Roderick, CEO, CreditRepairCompanies.com
One of the best graphic design blogs that I personally follow is Identity Designed by David Airey. ID is the ideal blog for designers and entrepreneurs alike who are seeking inspiration for their own ventures in the world of effective design. Not only does it showcase David Airey’s keen eye for beautiful visuals, but it also discusses in great depth the different ideologies of the most creative visual firms globally. Very insightful and full of valuable tips, it is definitely an incredible contribution to the design community and I highly recommend it.
– Alex Perkins, Co-Founder, All the Stuff
Fotor’s blog is a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate blog that offers tutorials for solving common design problems. It’s great for beginners as well as for advanced designers, as it offers a variety of articles, tutorials, and helpful, inspirational advice.
I believe Creative Bloq is one of the most useful blogs of 2020 as it presents samples of 3D art and various digital animations. They have a huge selection of amazing artworks that can motivate you and help you think of new, innovative ideas.
– Sharon Van Donkelaar, CMO, Expandi
Fonts in Use is an interesting website that shows off a series of different fonts and different types of posters and designs they can be used in. It’s always a great resource to look at for new fonts to use in a project or typically to see how to use different kinds of fonts in different situations. This is definitely a must-see site for any graphic designer.
The DSGN blog is another interesting site for inspiration. This site is based on visual design and features a lot of different and unique types of design. The thing that makes it unique is that it not only features designs from different studios but also features work from young designers and students. This always adds a bit of freshness to the catalog.
Print.pm is probably my favorite site. It shows different editorial designs that can be used in various forms of print media like posters, books, or newspaper articles. It’s a cornucopia of inspiration for anyone who wants to design books.
– Omair Khan, Outreach Consultant, Qaleen
One of my favorite platforms for inspiration and, moreover, expanding general knowledge is The UX Collective. It’s a Medium-based blog that gets rid of all the noise and clutter that comes with useful UX information, giving you back structured and useful tips. There is a lot of great advice on everything from principles of icon design to the explanation of how house plants can teach you about future-proof design.
Another blog I love is Mindsparkle, where you can grab tons of daily inspiration in the fields of design, web design, and video. It’s a kind of online magazine where you can in-depth content that covers graphic design, branding, photography, art, interior, product design, and architecture.
– Philip Weiss, Founder, PhilipWeiss.org
My absolute favorite design blog is by Canva. Their blog serves as a creative community where you can find design guides, a wealth of information about design perspectives, tutorials, and how-tos. They have posts from expert graphic designers with whom you can even connect. For me, it’s kind of a single platform to not only get design inspiration but also connect with artists from all over the world.
– Alejandro Rioja, Chairman, Flux Ventures
The Dieline features the best of packaging design and branding. The blog is well-curated and features a wide array of well-known brands as well as niche up-and-coming brands, spanning across food, beverage, beauty, and more. The Dieline is my premier resource for packaging inspiration.
Mindsparkle Mag features design and branding case studies that are refined, polished, and clean. Mindsparkle Mag is my go-to source for design inspiration with an elevated aesthetic.
Under Consideration: Brand New dives deep into critiques on branding and re-branding. Written and edited by Armin Vit, Under Consideration’s analyses are thoughtful and enjoyable to read. For more in-depth case studies, Under Consideration is my favorite resource out there.
Designspiration‘s site is simple, clean, and pleasant to peruse in order to get inspired simply by browsing through the feed. If you’re looking for more specific inspiration, you can search and begin going down the rabbit hole of inspiring design!
– Kristen Shenk, Creative Director, MLTI NYC
Design Clever is filled with novel ideas and great projects that work as a prompt for every type of creator.
Another blog I follow for design inspiration is Old Brand New. It’s more of a graphic blog oriented towards decoration and applied graphic pieces to interior decor. It feels super novel in their approach to things and layout.
– Joe Flanagan, Founder, 90s Fashion World
One of the most compelling graphic design blogs right now is Inspiration Grid because it gives you a really engaging look at the latest trends in graphic design and what some of the most prolific and interesting graphics designers are working on. The blog provides a mix of styles and media to appreciate and use as inspiration for your own designs and it also lets you filter through their blogs to find specific categories of interest like tech, advertising, and a lot more.
– David Adler, Founder and CEO, The Travel Secret
Creative Bloq has always been my go-to for design inspiration. In addition to a specific “Inspiration” category, Creative Bloq also features a wide variety of trending topics to always keep me in-the-know. Topics like graphic design, software reviews, and current events make using the blog a seamless part of my day. In addition, much of the writing doesn’t take itself too seriously, so getting bored with a topic is rare. Being able to have a one-stop-shop blog that features a little of everything can also fuel the fire for my inspiration.
– Ryan Maluchnik, Web & Graphic Designer, ryanmaluchnik.com
Graphic design forums are a great medium to connect with the graphic designer community. You can discuss your problem and can find a solution from professional designers. It provides an opportunity to discuss the latest news, ask for critiques, and much more.
– CJ Xia, VP of Marketing & Sales, Boster Biological Technology
The Dieline blog is a must-read blog for inspiration. It is a packaging design website that highlights the importance and value of a brand’s packaging design. It features articles, trends, and plenty of visual stimulation that is helpful for readers. You can view a wide variety of categories depending on what you need, which makes it very useful and convenient. It’s a blog that encourages brands to look at their work and be inspired to do their best in designing their brand’s packaging to become more successful in the long run.
– Mason Culligan, Founder and CEO, Mattress Battle Inc.
Fast Company Co-Design is my favorite among the endless list of design blogs on the web right now. When it comes to inspiration, I only look into this blog. What separates it among others is that they are centered around innovative designs across diverse industries from business to fashion. It’s a well-edited blog of the newest and captivating ideas in the design world.
– Israel Gaudette, Founder, Link Tracker Pro
I’ve read dozens of blogs, but Canva’s Design School beats them all. I’m the kind of reader that is always aiming to level up my skillset and learn more about my craft, and Canva’s Design School blog perfectly catered it to me. It offers so much information about blogging and marketing tips, templates, good old-fashioned inspiration, design tutorials, and so much more. These resources will aid you to make various designs like your logos, posters, business cards, and a lot of such things.
– Paul Lewis, Founder and CEO, Scrum Explainer
The DSGN blog gives you good visual inspiration for your next project. It showcases different designs and artworks from studios and upcoming artists around the globe. Their collection is huge and ranges from animation, graphic design, and even UI/UX designs.
UC Creative is also a great blog to follow especially if you want to be inspired by the latest trend in the design community. From chalkboard fonts to trending beer label designs, there is definitely something for everyone.
– Dan Nolan, Founder, Camping Console
Site Point is my favorite design blog for startups who want to be in the know on the latest design trends and need help in building an online graphic design portfolio. Their subscription service has some of the freshest content being shared regularly.
– Pratik Jain, Founder, OutreachBolt.com
Creative Bloq is a popular platform that provides its readers with daily creative tips and inspiration about web design, graphic design, 3D, and more. The reason why I choose this blog is they have many free materials and resources to help you build on and hone your design skills on a daily basis. It also provides a daily dose of design tips and inspiration, which delivers expert content every day to help designers solve their problems.
– Caroline Lee, Co-Founder, CocoSign
www.designclever.co.uk is great for quick visual references for a diverse global range of design projects. Open to submissions, they provide new and upcoming designers with the opportunity to publish and promote their work through their platform, which as result leads to a constant (curated) stream of new projects.
For a slightly more in-depth review and explanation of all things graphic design, branding, photography, product design, and even architecture, Mindsparkle pride themselves on being more of an online community of like-minded individuals than an online publication.
Lastly for web design, HTTPSTER provides a constant monthly stream of the most graphically pleasing websites available, from a huge variety of brands and companies.
– Chris Michael, Founder, archisoup.com
Whether organically or intentionally, I find there are so many places to turn for amazing design inspiration. But when it comes to tried and true blogs that tend to stay top-of-mind, they are Fonts in Use, Dribbble, and The Design Blog.
Fonts in Use is great for typography inspiration. You can search by typeface and see how other brands and interfaces have used the font. Discovering fonts and font pairings through actual application is their unique feature.
Of all the graphic design links in my list, Dribbble has been probably been around the longest. It’s a great inspiration board and blog for all types of design: product, graphic, motion, you name it. It’s especially helpful when the user includes the software the design was created in, and if you’re lucky, a downloadable native file!
The DSGN Blog is a well-curated repository of all-things-design and categorized as such. They usually feature a single designer or design per post in the graphic design section. With informative descriptions and beautiful feature photos, they let great design really speak for itself.
– Savitha Pal, Head of Design, Listory
Need a graphic design agency for your business?
We’ve researched and compiled a list of the best graphic design companies in the United States so you can find the perfect partner for your business.